John Sculley
John Sculley III (born April 6, 1939) is an American businessman, entrepreneur and investor in high-tech startups. Sculley was vice-president (1970–1977) and president of PepsiCo (1977–1983), until he became chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc. on April 8, 1983, a position he held until leaving in 1993. In May 1987, Sculley was named Silicon Valley's top-paid executive, with an annual salary of US$10.2 million.[3]: 412
"Sculley" redirects here. For others with the surname, see Sculley (surname). For other uses, see Scully and Skully.
John Sculley
- Vice President and President at PepsiCo (1970-1983)
- Chief executive officer of Apple (1983–1993)
- Partner at Sculley Brothers LLC (1995–2005)
- Founder Obi Worldphone (2014–2018)[2]
- Co-Founder Zeta Global (2007–present)
2
While Sculley was at Apple, Apple's sales increased tenfold from $800 million to $8 billion. However, many attribute his success to the fact that he joined the company just when Steve Jobs' visions and Steve Wozniak's creations had become highly lucrative.[4] His stint at Apple remains controversial due to his departure from co-founder Steve Jobs's sales structure, particularly regarding Sculley's decision to compete with IBM in selling computers to the same types of customers.[5] Others say that the "two clashed over management styles and priorities, Jobs focusing on future innovation and Sculley more on current product lines and profitability".[6] But Sculley ultimately was forced to step down as Apple CEO because he was opposed to licensing Macintosh software and was talking to Goldman Sachs about splitting Apple into two companies. When Sculley left in May 1993, Apple had $2 billion in cash and $200 million in debt.
Sculley is recognized as an expert in marketing, in part because of his early successes at PepsiCo, notably his introduction of the Pepsi Challenge, which allowed the company to gain market share from primary rival Coca-Cola.[7] He used similar marketing strategies throughout the 1980s and 1990s at Apple to mass-market Macintosh personal computers, and today he continues to speak and write about disruptive marketing strategies.[8]
Sculley is currently invested in and involved with a number of high-tech start-up companies, including 3CInteractive, Zeta Global,[9] Inflexion Point, Mobeam, OpenPeak, x10 Credit, Pivot Acquisition Corp., nextSource and WorldMate. He is currently Chairman of the PeopleTicker and SkillsVillage.[10][11]
Sculley was portrayed by Allan Royal in the 1999 TNT television film Pirates of Silicon Valley, by Matthew Modine in the 2013 film Jobs and by Jeff Daniels in the 2015 film Steve Jobs.
Early life[edit]
Sculley was born in New York City, the son of Margaret Blackburn (Smith), a horticulturist, and John Sculley, Jr., a Wall Street lawyer.[12][13] Sculley and his brothers spent much of their childhood in Bermuda before moving back to New York. He attended high school at St. Mark's School in Southborough, Massachusetts.[14]
Sculley received a bachelor's degree in Architectural Design from Brown University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.[15]
Other[edit]
Sculley went political in the early 1990s on behalf of Republican Tom Campbell, who in 1992 was running in the California Republican primary to be the party candidate for a United States Senate seat. Sculley hosted a fundraiser for Campbell at his ranch in Woodside. Sculley had become acquainted with Hillary Clinton, serving with her on a national education council. When Bill Clinton ran for president, Sculley supported him. Sculley sat next to Hillary Clinton during the President's first State of the Union address in January 1993.[67]